Fresh air. That’s the topic for the Christianwriters.com blog chain for June. (You can read the other entries for the month in the right sidebar.) I thought about skipping it. Nothing came to mind. Nothing. Zero. Nada. Zippity-doo-dah!

But on the day I was going to beg off, I opened the windows in the house. What a beautiful day! Low humidity. Crystal blue sky. Wispy white clouds. Gentle breeze. And the sweet serenade of the birds’ trilling.

I turned the window fan on in the kitchen to bring in that wonderful aroma of fresh air. Ahhh! One of my favorite things! My body loves that cool, clean, fresh air. I love spring and fall when those crisp breezes come to visit. My whole body smiles and sighs a big thank you!

As I sat down to write, my mind wandered back many years, MANY years, to before I began school. My parents and I lived with my grandparents on a large, self-sustained farm. That means we had pigs, horses, cattle, dairy cows, chickens, turkeys (they really are dumb), ducks, and the obligatory barn cats. We even had our own dairy, orchard, flower and vegetable gardens, and great places to run and play.

One of my most precious memories of those days is of my sweet grandmother. She had one of the workmen plant a bazillion jonquils and daffodils along the hillside by the creek. Every spring, as the frozen stream melted into new life, giggling up bubbles over the rocks, the flowers burst forth into a sea of yellow.

At one point, the stream split and came back together, creating a small, I mean tiny, island. Granny had a footbridge built to the little island. We would pack our lunch and go to the island for a picnic. I remember the brisk air, fresh and redolent with a multitude of blossoms.

These days, I’m not as fortunate to enjoy the outdoors. Besides weather changes and conditions, numerous other things aggravate the fibromyalgia that affects my body. I also cannot bear to be in a place where the air is too warm, stuffy, or stagnant. I feel smothered.

Have you ever been in a place where the air hung so close, so stagnant, so confining that you could barely catch your breath and you craved fresh air?

The same is true of my spirit; it hates to be smothered and stagnant with a myriad of troubles and attitudes. It needs the breath of the Holy Spirit to breathe fresh life into it. Someone once said, “Breath is Spirit. The act of breathing is Living.”

After fashioning man, God drew near him as His Spirit hovered and “blew into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7 Masoretic Text)

The breath of living. That breath of God, that divine inspiration, still infuses man, supplying him with the vital breath of the Lord’s likeness. He is our Life, the very breath of our souls.

The Lord “Himself gives life and breath to everything,” (Acts 17:25a TLB) “the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God, and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:10 TLB)

In the midst of writing this, I made one of my daily comments for everyone to have a good day on Facebook, “Happy Monday, everyone! Smile! May your day be filled with progress, provision, encouragement, and good surprises! Enjoy! :D”

My cyber-friend Dana Pratola responded, “Wow, Lynn, it’s always nice to see one of your encouragements on here. It’s like a breath of fresh air. ♥” I laughed and asked her if she was part of our blog chain. I thought she was teasing me.

But isn’t that what we are supposed to be: a breath of fresh air to others? If the Lord has shared His precious breath with us, shouldn’t we be that holy, fresh breath to others who may feel smothered and stagnant? Shouldn’t we be encouraging rather than whining and complaining?

Is your spirit smothered with circumstances, stagnant with negative attitudes? Have you allowed the Almighty to breathe His Life back into your spirit? Can you say as Job did, “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4 NKJV)?

May you know that precious breath of fresh, Eternal Life as He infuses it into your body, soul, and spirit.

THE FRESH AIR FUND, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. Nearly 10,000 New York City children enjoy free Fresh Air Fund programs annually. In 2010, close to 5,000 children visited volunteer host families in suburbs and small town communities across 13 states from Virginia to Maine and Canada. 3,000 children also attended five Fresh Air camps on a 2,300-acre site in Fishkill, New York. The Fund’s year-round camping program serves an additional 2,000 young people each year.

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